


Surrounded by Your Friends

by literati42



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Banter, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Malcolm and the crew need lighthearted moments too, Team Bonding, chosen family, everyone being friends
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-31
Updated: 2020-01-31
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:40:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,583
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22488073
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literati42/pseuds/literati42
Summary: After an exciting case, a snow storm causes the team to be stuck at the precinct. Luckily, Edrisa has puzzles and the rest of the team has quips.Aka. Gil watching his kids be friends.
Comments: 23
Kudos: 206
Collections: Literati42 Commissions Trades Requests





	Surrounded by Your Friends

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cornerofmadness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cornerofmadness/gifts).



> For Cornerofmadness who requested a post case fic with everyone together.
> 
> Spoilers through 1x12
> 
> So happy to write a light fic for this crew! And to update two days in a row! The inspiration is back, baby!
> 
> As always, come hang out with me on twitter @themythofpsyche and:
> 
> *****I am taking requests!!******

Surrounded by Your Friends

“Say it,” said Malcolm, walking a step behind Dani as she grabbed her coat from her desk and pulled it on.

“What are you, five?”

“Say it! When is the next time you will even get the chance?” Malcolm beamed at her, his eyes full of a unique type of energy he seemed to have all to himself. Gil often thought of it as manic, but he knew that was not quite the right term. “The butler did it!”

Dani rolled her eyes, “He was technically a valet.”

“Still.”

“Don’t you rich types know the difference? You grew up with one of each, right?” JT said.

“We never had a butler,” Malcolm said, “And only occasionally a valet.”

Gil looked away from his squabbling “kids” to check the alert that popped up on his phone. He felt a migraine immediately forming above his eye. “Don’t put your coats on yet, no one is going anywhere.”

JT paused with one arm in his jacket and one out.

“We have another case?” Malcolm asked, the only one looking thrilled.

“No, we have a whiteout.” Gil motioned to the window and they all followed his gaze outside. The snow that was softly flurrying all day now looked like a solid sheet reflecting the lights from the window. “The city called a state of emergency. No one is going anywhere until visibility improves unless there is an actual crisis. I am sorry JT, unfortunately, getting home to your wife’s cooking does not constitute one.”

“You wouldn’t say that if you were about to eat it,” he replied under his breath.

“Until visibility increases, you are all staying here,” Gil said again, turning his eyes to Dani and JT. He was not at all surprised that Malcolm looked perfectly fine with this idea.

“Great, because there are some cold case I was hoping to crack into,” the profiler said, rubbing his hands together in delight. He looked exactly like he had as a teenager when Gil caved in to his pleading and said yes, he could look at a case file just this once. (Of course, no one has ever succeeded at actually limiting Malcolm to a “just this once” or at least, Gil never has). “We’re going to need…”

What Malcolm believed they were going to need, and whatever quip JT would have inevitably returned, they all would never know because before the demand could leave Malcolm’s lips, the lights went out.

Gil groaned. It was going to be a long night.

_-_-_

Gil somehow managed to wrangle his team into his office backup generator kicked in enough to give them a bare bit of light. He could already feel the cold seeping into the room, so he made his way to the tumblers, pouring them each a drink. As he handed one to Malcolm, he saw the familiar shake.

No, wait. An unfamiliar shake?

Gil stopped and cupped the back of Malcolm’s neck, feeling a full-body shiver. “How are you already this cold?”

“It’s because he’s so skinny,” JT said.

Malcolm unconsciously leaned into the touch and warmth even as he said, “I’m fine.”

Gil gave him his trademark look of disbelief and went over to the closet. In their line of work, there was no telling when something unpleasant—hopefully mud but occasionally something worse—would ruin the clothes of the day, so he always kept a spare. He pulled out a black turtleneck and tossed it to Malcolm. The kid looked at it skeptically for a second, but sighed and pulled it on over his button-up. Gil tried to hide his smile at the way it made Malcolm look like a kid in oversized clothes.

JT was right, he was skin and bones.

“Knock knock,” Dr. Edrisa said, poking her head in the door and actually knocking with her hand as well. “I heard you were all up here, and the morgue is colder than usual at the moment. So I thought maybe we could finally do that puzzle.” She held up the box, “You like puzzles right, Bright?”

Bright paused, then gave the smile he always sent her way. “Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever done one.”

She gasped, “What? Now you have no choice. I absolutely insist,” she said it with the kind of intensity they usually only saw from the people they brought in for questioning. She came in, not waiting for an invitation and proceeded to sit on the floor of Gil’s office. Bright hesitated, then looked down as the dim lighting revealed what she the box she was sitting out.

“Is that a puzzle of the different systems of the body?” he asked.

“You know that’s right,” Edrisa said, “I’m starting with the nerve section…you want bone?” His eyes shot up to hers and she went red, giggling, “I mean to do the bone section…obviously.”

He just smiled at her. Gil noticed that Malcolm never responded to her flirting. He wondered what the kid made of her overtures, because surely even Malcolm would be able to recognize signals this overt.

“This is hell,” JT said, but despite his proclamation, he sat down on the other side of the puzzle. He looked up to find Bright studying him and shook his head. “Nope, you are not profiling this. Not tonight. I am tired, I am hungry, and I do not have time for your freaky mind thing. Now hand me a damn piece.”

Bright took a piece with his good hand and passed it over. “I think that is part of the foot.”

“I don’t have your fancy degree, but I have eyes, Bright,” he replied, immediately finding the space where the piece should be.

Dani shook her head, sighing. She stole Gil’s office chair and maneuvered it where she could watch them without sitting on the floor. “You have to start with the edges, or it’s all going to be chaos.”

“I like chaos,” Malcolm said, putting a piece in the direct middle attached to nothing.

“You are chaos,” JT replied.

“You are all so funny,” Edrisa chimed in.

Gil sunk into the couch, his whiskey in hand, and just let their voices flow around him. Malcolm excitedly lifted up a piece, “This is the exact location on the fibula broken by the Sea Side Killer as part of his MO.” He seemed so happy, you would never know that just an hour ago, Malcolm stood toe to toe with a gun-wielding valet.

“I love him!” Edrisa said, “I mean, his case obviously I don’t love him. He’s terrible, but that case was so interesting.”

“He was a fascinating conversationalist too,” Bright said.

“No, you worked that case? You are too young! And if you’d worked with the Sea Side Killer case, I would have known.”

“Out of curiosity, do you know all of Bright’s cases?” Dani asked, but her words were ignored in their excitement.

“I didn’t work the case, I interviewed him for my thesis.”

“At Harvard,” Edrisa said. “I almost went to Harvard but I ended up going to MIT. It’s a shame, we could have been friends.”

Bright looked over at her, complete surprise on his face. “You think we would have been friends in college?”

“I think we would have been friends at any age.”

“I wouldn’t have talked to any of you in college,” JT said. The quip did nothing to darken Bright’s smile. Instead, it just faded into softness in his eyes. Gil realized that he may not know what Malcolm made of Edrisa’s flirting, but none of her interest had ever touched the kid like this statement did. Gil’s heart seized. His kid never failed to be surprised when people genuinely liked him.

“Oh really?” Dani said back to JT. “When did you decide to lower your standards to talk to us? You must be slipping.” She kicked his leg lightly, “Put that one over with Edrisa’s piece.”

“You must have had tons of friends in college,” Edrisa said to Malcolm.

“No, just Gil,” Malcolm said without looking up. He said it casually as if it was nothing to declare. Edrisa frowned, her shock apparent. She opened her mouth to say something, and Gil saw JT and Dani exchange a look, something passing between them that he did not know about.

“Give me that one,” JT said, interrupting whatever she was about to say. “What kind of serial killer attacked this puzzle piece?” he asked, holding it up. Bright squinted at it.

“That looks like it might be part of the cranial nerve.” He pointed to where approximately the piece would go. “And actually, there was a really interesting unsolved case…”

Just like that, Gil witnessed his team protect each other. It was seamless, just like they were in the field. Earlier that day, Dani had distracted a gunman long enough for JT to corner him. They moved together and got Bright out of yet another situation he ran intentionally into.

Then tonight, they moved as a unit, distracting Edrisa from pressing too hard on a sore area.

Gil wondered when they had started circling like this, protecting Bright emotionally now as well as physically. Did it start with his kidnapping? Or was it when they reviewed the tapes of the fake Internal Affairs interviews? Was it before any of that? Regardless, he leaned back and stayed a silent witness to their bantering, glad for once not to be the only one watching Malcolm’s back.


End file.
